The present embodiments relate to assisting navigation of an endoscopic device with the aid of at least one digital image data record of an imaging examination modality.
The present embodiments are under the field of endoscopy and therefore deal with an examination of a cavity element with the aid of an endoscopic device. The cavity element examined may be a cavity element of a technical device or a hollow organ of a patient. In the area of minimally invasive surgery, an optical instrument (e.g., a rigid endoscope) may be introduced into different body cavities. To keep the surgical intervention as minimal as possible, such instruments are introduced into the body through a body opening or an incision, into entry openings or ports (e.g., a port in the abdominal wall of a patient or a hole in an outer wall of a cavity element of a technical device). The introduction of an endoscopic device through a port is advantageous, as the introduction reduces the trauma for a patient, for example, as much as possible. The introduction of an endoscopic device through a port may, however, also cause certain problems. One example of a problem due to such a port, which is located in an abdominal wall, for example, is the restriction of the degrees of freedom with which the endoscopic device may be moved. Cavities to be examined may therefore only be viewed to a limited degree, or it may not be possible to set an advantageous viewing angle for the object to be examined. Such a problem is referred to in the following as a compromising condition. During the course of, for example, a minimally invasive surgical intervention in the abdomen, where the port (i.e., the entry opening) is a hole in the abdominal wall, it may disadvantageously be that, for example, the liver may not be visualized from all positions and angles within the body cavity, as the movement of the endoscopic device may not be transferred at the entry opening.
Until now, this problem has been solved to some degree by using endoscopes that have an angled optical system (e.g., with an angle of 30 degrees and 70 degrees). Different viewing angles may be achieved by rotating the endoscope about an axis of the endoscope.
In the prior art, the cited disadvantage is resolved by a rigid endoscope with a flexible tip, which allows additional viewing angles and observation positions to be achieved with the aid of the flexible component enclosing the optical system. The optical system is, for example, incorporated in the tip of the endoscope. However, this approach requires extensive structural changes to the hardware and significantly restricts the resolution of the optical device (e.g., the endoscopic device, as a computer chip with a correspondingly smaller width is to be mounted on the tip). There are still problems due to the entry opening with the result that not all the viewing positions and/or viewing angles of the three-dimensional volumetric data record may be achieved with the endoscope.